


The Hidden Play

by Lady_Ariadne



Category: Original Work
Genre: 19th Century, F/M, London, Slums of Victorian London, Talents, alternative universe, late 19th century, victorian london
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 22:15:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16396112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Ariadne/pseuds/Lady_Ariadne
Summary: The end of the 19th Century is dawning and the face of London is changing rapidly. In between the discovery of pioneering new technology and the crippling poverty of most of its citizens, the city's streets witness the seemingly evanescent changes to young Lena Calvert's life after she met Hazel Ashdown and decided to introduce her into her group of waifs.





	The Hidden Play

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my first story that is not taking place at some point in the future. I have always been fascinated by the various ways of life in London during the Victorian era and so I decided it was time to finally take one of my ancient drafts, polish it a little bit and post it to AO3.

It was freezing cold when Hazel walked down Milk Street. The row of houses, in which she and her friends had found shelter in an unused attic, was only another furlong away and if she hurried she just might still get a bowl of hot soup. Hazel shivered when the wind found its way through her torn jacket. “I’ve got to stitch you up again,” she said when she felt the torn hem on the side, hoping that there was still some yarn left in the little box she always hid beneath her blanket. Luckily none of the other people on the street paid her any attention and so she could slip into the narrow alley unseen, walking silently to the dead end staircase. When she had first asked why the red stone steps led to nothing but another stone wall, she had learned that there used to be a back entrance to the house but that it had been bricked up years ago. By now it was more likely that a bunch of wooden crates were blocking the way than for someone to stray away from Milk Street.

Once she was close enough to touch both sides of the alley without effort Hazel made sure nobody was looking and began to climb the wall. Someone had sealed all old entrances to the attic shut, most likely because the place was barely big enough to stand upright and terribly draughty. On the one hand this meant that the only way the children could enter was through the small hatches on the roof, on the other hand though they were also safe from an unwelcome surprise by the people living below them. Hazel knocked on the hatch in their secret pattern, a ludicrous safety measure considering that no one still in their right mind would voluntarily climb onto the old roof. The hatch opened an a boy grinned at her, his face almost unrecognizable beneath the coal dust on his face. “Hey Will, have you been a good boy sweeping chimneys?” she teased the younger boy, who in turn stuck out his tongue at her. “Stop that, get over here and clean yourself or there won’t be no dinner for you,” Lena warned him. She smiled at Hazel, glad that the girl had returned in time.

In total there were thirteen permanent residents in the attic, even if the word permanent was a bit of a stretch since they all just gathered here for dinner and sleeping. There was no fireplace in the attic and so they had taken some stone and built a small windbreak on a ledge where they would prepare the hot meals. “So, what have you prepared today?” Hazel asked Lena, nodding towards the hatch that lead to the improvised stove. “It’s a simple stew, but it’s hot and it should be ready,” the girl responded and quickly went to take the steaming kettle inside. The other children came and formed a queue, each of them eager to receive their share of dinner. Lena took the big soup ladle and began to fill their bowls. “Have you had any luck today?” she asked while conjuring a smile onto a little blonde’s face, it took Hazel a moment to remember that her name was Amelia. “This is all I could get,” Hazel said and handed her the small purse, “It should add up to about a schilling”. Lena looked at her with amazement as she weighed the purse in her hand, before she attached it to her belt. “I wish we had come across you earlier, you’re pretty amazing at stealing,” she complimented and filled the remaining stew into two bowls for themselves.

Lena hadn’t lied when she said it would be quite a simple dinner and yet Hazel loved the feeling of warmth that began to spread through her body once she had swallowed the first spoon full. “Don’t you think we should move for the winter?” Hazel suggested when she remembered why a hot meal was always the best part of the day. Lena looked at her with glance incomprehension. “Move where?” she returned. “We were lucky to find this place and for most of us this is the best place we ever had.” It hurt Hazel to hear this, but her friend was right apart from herself there was nobody who grew up in a real house. “I’m sorry, it was a stupid idea,” she apologized and quickly ate another spoon of stew. “Don’t be, the idea wasn’t bad we just can’t pursue it,” Lena said and caressed Hazel’s shoulder. “But we can at least try to stuff the cracks so that it gets a little bit warmer in here”. Together the two made sure that the other children scraped their bowls and then took them, so that they could be cleaned. “Do you want to go to sleep already or could I persuade you to a little walk?” Lena asked. She hadn’t left the attic all day, dutifully mending all the children’s clothes so that they were at least a somewhat prepared for the winter. “You want to stretch out your legs, don’t you?” Hazel returned and looked at her coat’s torn hem. “I might need a moment to stitch this up and get out of this ridiculous skirt though”.

There still was a bit of the simple white yarn left in the metal box with Hazel’s personal belongings. It would be a strong contrast to the dark fabric of her coat, meaning that she had no choice but to work as precise as she could if she wanted the jacket to keep at least some of its already questionable aesthetic. “Why do you hate the skirt so much, it makes you look cute,” Lena teased her with a mischievous grin on her thin, red lips. “I know and it’s so much better for stealing from men, but I just can’t properly run or climb with it,” Hazel explained and finished the seam. She changed into a pair of trousers she had bought a few weeks ago and showed Lena that she was ready to go.

Together the girls left through the hatch Hazel had used earlier and climbed down to the alley. It was already far beyond sunset and the only light illuminating Milk street came from the gaslights. Their light was still a lot brighter than the chamber sticks they used in the attic, causing Hazel to wish for at least one of them during the winter as otherwise it would become nearly impossible to do any stitching or other detail work. London had a brisk nightlife, very unlike to what Hazel had gotten to know from living in the country. But surviving on the city’s streets as well as living with Lena and the others had been an excellent teacher on where to go and which places she’d better end up avoiding. By now she could navigate the streets of the Cheap Ward good enough to no longer get lost every time she left the attic. When they reached the crossing where the Queen Street became King Street, she knew where the redhead wanted to go.

“Do you really think we should go down, it’s close to freezing,” Hazel noted as they were standing next to one of the pillars of Southwark Bridge. “Don’t worry you’ll have to learn how to climb a frozen surface sooner or later, remember our attic might grow some icicles soon,” just like most of the time Lena was hiding a harsh truth behind her joking nature. Without another second of hesitation she jumped over the railing and turned while kneeling down, grasping the first stone ledge. In a row of controlled falling down to the next she soon was on the grey foundation and after loosing a final argument in her head Hazel swiftly followed her. She sat down next to her friend, leaning as close as possible to the wall behind them. “I will never get why you like this place so much, it’s cold and you’re just one wrong step away from drowning,” Hazel complained, feeling the cold creeping from the stones and into her body. Lena was looking down the Thames, her steel blue eyes glistening in the fain light. “They have begun to build a new bridge just over there,” she said and pointed at a spot behind the railroad bridge. “They are going to create two huge towers in the middle of the river,” she continued in amazement of this seemingly crazy idea. “Surely they have a huge crew of Talents to make sure nothing goes wrong,” Hazel said vacantly, while trying to imagine how a bridge with towers might look spanning over the Thames.

Silently both girls were watching the slow current of the river, the thousands upon thousands tons of water that were flowing into the sea. “Do you want a slug of gin?” Lena asked and held out a bottle with something that could easily be mistaken for water. “Where did you get that?” Hazel wanted to know, amazement filling her voice. It had definitely been an eternity since she had been able to enjoy a proper drink. “There’s this boy I know, his father works in the distillery and he sneaks me one of his cheap bottles every now and then,” Lena declared and uncorked the bottle. The Gin ways incredibly strong and the aroma was far from the herbal notes Hazel was used to, nevertheless she happily took a good swig of it. “Careful, don’t overdo it,” Lena said when she saw then amount Hazel had just downed. “Don’t worry,” the girl returned, “I used to drink with my father and he wasn’t exactly what you’d call an easy drinker”. As if to prove her words she took another swig of the clear liquid. Lena granted her a concerned smile before taking a sip herself. So far Hazel hadn’t told her more than a few rough details about her past and Lena wasn’t the person who would just ask her friend about something she clearly didn’t want to talk about. Behind them in the distance the girls could hear the chime of Big Ben, nine strong strokes telling them that it was time to move on. 

Climbing back up the pillar took a little longer than the other way around and so the massive bell’s chimes had long faded away when Hazel’s feet were touching the bridge’s surface again. If they hurried it should take them a bit under an hour to reach their given that they weren’t delayed by anything. “And this man you met is really going to pay us two pounds for some papers?” Lena asked, she still couldn’t believe that somebody would be willing to give away so much money for nothing but a few words on a paper. “That’s what he told me,” Hazel confirmed. It was the last Saturday in October when she had told Lena about the man who had caught her stealing a pair of leather gloves and how instead of reporting her to the police the man had made her an offer, if she could steal some letters out of a mansion.

The girls had considered various methods to get access to the mansion, with their first idea being to get a job as a maid in the house. The idea turned out to be futile when they learned that there was not a single open position in the entire housekeeping. Another idea that had to be discarded was to seduce the patriarch’s son, but since neither of them possessed any clothes that would allow them to disguise as a girl of the upper class it never became more than a game of make-believe. They finally came to the conclusion that the easiest way would actually be to just break into the office when there were as little people as possible inside the mansion. Therefore the two had been closely watching the everyday occurrences at the mansion, carefully noting the daily routine of the family members and staff. By now Hazel and Lena knew more about each of the residents than they did know about their partners, siblings or colleagues.

At about 10 p.m. the man of the house was usually still out for an evening of card game while his wife met with the other ladies. Their son was currently visiting a friend in the south, so he was out of the picture as well. The two daughters were both taught by a private tutor who apparently held an unhealthy interest in the older girl, oddly enough she seemed to return his interest and with a little bit of luck they might be in one of their “studies” that could take until deep into the night. The youngest daughter though might become a problem since she didn’t sleep very well lately. Hazel had suggested to drug her before they went into the study, but Lena rejected this idea strongly. Considering that the bed chambers were on the other side of the mansion, she was probably right to consider it as too much of a risk.

The three quieter chimes had just ended when Hazel and Lena reached the drinking fountain opposite to the mansion. The study and with it their entrance point was in the third floor on the back of the building, facing away from the street and its commotion. It had an oriel window with sills that seemed to have been made for climbing and thanks to a smaller building bordering the mansion on the ground-floor it would be even easier to get access. Careful not to be seen by anyone the girls sneaked into Dean’s Mews until the reached the smaller building. Hazel gave her friend a leg up and once Lena was securely lying on top of the edge she reached down and pulled her up as well. Getting up to the oriel now would be a waltz since there were small protrusions on both sides of each window. They climbed up the side facing the inner courtyard for its lower risk of being spotted and once they both were on one side of the study oriel’s right window, Lena unbolted the window allowing them to slip in.

“No major light,” Hazel ordered and earned an eye roll for stating the obvious. Hazel took one of her matches and lit one of the white candles. “Don’t worry they’re made from paraffin, they don’t smell,” she said when seeing the worry written on Lena’s face. Holding the candle as close as she dared Hazel began to search the massive bureau’s drawers, looking for a set of letters signed by the Earl of Durham. “You can read?” Lena marvelled when she saw Hazel’s eyes dart over the many papers. “When my father was in the field with my brothers and my mother was busy sewing or some such, it was my job to go to the market and buy what we needed. So one day the tradesman, Mr. Harris, taught me because I kept forgetting things,” Hazel replied without looking up from the various letters. It took her four drawers until she was holding the bundle that would earn them two pounds. “Now let’s scram,” Lena said. Hazel nodded and put the candle back in its original place. She made sure that the window was bolted again before they went through the door.

Their exit was one floor below them, the window in the older daughter’s room which she opened in the evening and usually forgot to close again. That was if she would even be sleeping in her own room. Usually the dumb-waiter would have been an easy way to shorten their stay in the mansion, but both the risk of occupying two room and abseiling into a room that wasn’t necessarily empty was simply too much of a risk. Therefore the two girls were now sneaking through the dark hallway, endeavoured to make as little noise as possible. With the stairs being the by far loudest part of their escape route, they waited for the entire stairway to be clear before quickly rushing to the second floor. Just as expected the creaking of the old wood alarmed on of the maids, who soon after came walking up the stairs looking whether someone had broken into the mansion. When she walked down the upper corridor and lit the gas lighting, Hazel and Lena where crouching beneath a preposterous divan holding their breath when the polished back shoes were next to their heads. The maid checked all the doors on the corridor before she went up to the third floor.

“That was close,” Lena whispered as the two crawled out from under the divan. The eldest daughter’s room was the last one on the right side and when Lena tried the door she found it unlocked. At first glance it looked like the girl was sleeping in her bed, but upon watching closer the lack of breathing motion revealed that there were only cushions beneath the blanket. Just as predicted the window furthest from the bed stood ajar barely wide enough for the girls to slip through and jump down into the inner courtyard. From here all it took them was a quick climb over the lower building and they were back on the street in front of the building. It would take them another hour to get back to the attic, but that was by far the easiest part of their nocturnal raid. Hazel pressed her fingers against the letters in her chest pocket, when Lord Everleigh realized that the Earl’s messages were missing they would have long left the city.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and cutups are very welcome and if you should have any suggestions or wishes I promise to take them into account.


End file.
